


The Boneyard

by pigeonking



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 07:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10406988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonking/pseuds/pigeonking
Summary: The Grendel are back and this time we get to visit their home planet...





	

The Chimera Class Martian battle cruiser drifted through space like an enormous intergalactic crocodile searching for its next victim. Its crew of Martian Ice Warriors, however, were not on a military mission, but were actually transporting a valuable cargo to one of the outer Martian colonies. Commander Raxyr had been honoured by the Emperor’s decision to entrust him and his crew with the transportation of such a powerful and valuable relic of the Martian Nobility.

The Sword of Skarzak was more than just any old sword. It was a symbol of hope for the Martian people as a whole. Many of their people believed that the mere presence of the sword brought good fortune and prosperity. As such it was not uncommon for some of the struggling outer colonies to occasionally request from the Emperor a loan of the sword in the hopes that it would inspire the demoralised colonists to overcome their adversity and succeed in their endeavours. A lot of the time it actually seemed to work. Raxyr attributed this to the inspirational effect it had on the Martian people rather than on any magical properties the sword might possess. What mattered was that it did work and now someone else was seeking to benefit.

“Commander, there is something wrong with the navigational control!” one of his men was reporting. “We’re being drawn off course!”

“Increase power to the engines!” Raxyr instructed. “We will try and break free of whatever is pulling us.”

The Commander’s instructions were hastily carried out. Outside the powerful engines of the Chimera Class cruiser burned brighter than ever, like twin suns. The effect on those inside the ship was almost immediate.

Many Martians tumbled where they stood or were thrown from their seats as the ship began to shudder violently as if it were being shaken by an invisible giant hand.

“We must decrease the engines again, Commander!” came a shout over the roar of the engines and the juddering of the vessel. “If we don’t we’ll compromise hull integrity and the whole ship will come apart!”

Raxyr growled with frustration beneath his helmet.

“Do it!” he snarled.

Again his orders were carried out; the engine power was decreased and very gradually the quaking of the vessel subsided.

“We are still being pulled off course, Commander, and gaining speed by the second!” a report came from one of the crew.

“Scan the surrounding area! See if you can ascertain the origin of this force that is pulling us in. Where is it taking us? There is not a planet in this system close enough to be able to affect us in this manner!” Raxyr brought his clawed fist down on the arm of his command-chair in frustration.

“That’s strange!” a young Martian cadet sat at a side console was consulting the readings on a monitor in front of him.

Raxyr got up from his chair and strode over to where the cadet was posted so that he could see for himself.

“What is?” he asked with poorly concealed impatience.

“I’m detecting a distortion in the sector of space to the starboard side of the ship. It seems to be the source of what holds us and that is the direction in which we are being pulled, but there is nothing there!” the cadet reported.

“Could it be another vessel operating a cloaking device?” Raxyr wondered.

“The distortion is far too big to come from any vessel that I know of, Commander. For a ship to be able to generate the kind of interference that I am picking up then it would need to be the size of a planet.” The cadet explained.

“I do not know of any species that has ever built a ship that big before, but I guess it’s not impossible.” Raxyr mused thoughtfully.

“We should find out soon enough, Commander. We will be passing through the distortion in six seconds.” The cadet informed him.

“Five.”

“Activate the view screen!” Raxyr ordered.

“Four.”

“Let us see where we are going!”

“Three.”

The view screen came on.

“Two.”

All that could be seen was stars.

“One.”

The ship shuddered slightly as it passed through the distortion like a heavy blunt stone passing through treacle.

Once they were clear the view screen was suddenly filled by the gargantuan sphere of a planet rushing towards them at an accelerated rate. However, it was the ship that was moving towards it and at the current rate of acceleration, Raxyr knew that there was no way that any of them would be walking away in one piece when they hit the surface.

“All hands brace for impact!” Raxyr bellowed urgently.

The command was too little too late and the last thing that any of them saw was the rocky terrain of the planet hurtling up to greet them.

 

Not a single living thing could be seen or heard for miles around. Vegetation was all but non-existent and subsisted of a few stunted and gnarled trees dotted about the barren, rocky alien landscape. It was night, but then it had been on this planet for many hundreds of years. The only light came from the stars that twinkled in the cloudless black sky.

The silence of this landscape was disturbed by a sudden howling and grinding that rent the air and heralded the arrival of a blue police telephone box that materialised slowly between two hump-backed trees. As the box became solid the raucous noise that had summoned it from the ether dissipated.

Moments later a door opened on the front of the box and three figures emerged from within.

They were one man and two women, apparently human in origin. The man was short with dark hair and he wore a cream coloured jacket over a knitted jumper that was emblazoned with dozens of question marks. He also wore brown checked trousers and a beige straw hat was perched atop of his head. The question mark motif was carried over onto the black umbrella which he carried draped over one arm; the red handle was shaped like the familiar punctuation mark.

The first woman looked to be in her early twenties. She had long brown hair tied back into a tight pony-tail and was wearing all-in-one green khaki overalls with black army boots. A blue rucksack was slung over one shoulder and she had a blaster gun hanging from a holster at her right hip.

The other woman was in her late twenties or early thirties with short spiky black hair. She was wearing a brown leather jacket over a tight figure hugging magenta T-shirt and equally tight blue jeans also with army boots. Like the other woman she also carried a blaster weapon holstered at her side.

“Well this is it, Bernice!” the man proclaimed in a broad Scottish accent that rolled his ‘r’s. “Exactly where you wanted to be! Welcome to the Boneyard!”

“Why’s it called that?” the first woman asked curiously.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” The man replied cryptically.

“And why are we here again?” the woman enquired with barely disguised boredom.

“The Boneyard is a planet that can’t be found unless you’re looking for it and those who do look for it never come back alive!” the man declared with an air of theatricality.

“So, how did we find it and if no one’s ever come back from it alive, how does anyone even know about it?” the woman pointed out.

“We found it because we were looking for it, Ace!” the man drawled. “And I might have exaggerated when I said that no one has come back alive… there was one survivor, once.”

“And again I ask… why are we here, Professor?” Ace smirked.

“Bernice, do you care to explain to our young, impatient friend?” the Doctor suggested with a smile.

“Glad to!” Bernice replied. The young archaeologist quickly reverted to lecture mode.

“For many hundreds of years ships have been vanishing in this sector of space without a trace. It wasn’t until recently that we found out where they were all going.”

“Let me guess!” Ace interrupted. “It’s here isn’t it?”

“Gold star, Ace!” congratulated the Doctor.

Ace beamed and curtsied.

“The reason we now know that,” Bernice continued. “Is due to the lone survivor that the Doctor mentioned. Somehow he was able to escape from the planet and when he did he went public with all that he knew about the Boneyard in the hopes that he could save future space travellers from a similar fate.”

“So why were all these vanishing space ships ending up here?” Ace wondered.

“They were being brought here on purpose by something very nasty indeed.” The Doctor replied.

“And what would that be?” Ace asked.

“A very unpleasant race of carnivorous cyborgs known as the Grendel. They have deliberately shielded their planet so that no one knows that it’s there… until it’s too late. The Grendel use a powerful tractor beam to ensnare passing ships and scuttle them upon the planet’s surface.” The Doctor explained grimly.

“But why? For what reason?” Ace asked, horrified by what she was hearing so far.

“They eat the survivors, preferably alive, though they’re not too particular and the space ships they salvage for spare parts to use in their own technology and to create their cybernetic grafts and enhancements.” The Doctor told her.

“That’s horrible.” Ace remarked, appalled. “So that brings me back to my first question… why are we here?”

Bernice took up the story again.

“Five hundred years ago a Martian battle cruiser went missing in this sector of space. It’s reasonable to assume that it ended up here.”

“So why does that concern us? Surely there can’t be any survivors after five hundred years!” Ace pointed out.

“We’re not looking for survivors. The ship was carrying an ancient and valuable Martian relic, the Sword of Skarzak!” Bernice explained. “That is what we are here to find.”

“Well why didn’t you just say so?” Ace remarked dryly. “Come on. We’d better get looking then hadn’t we?”

The three time travellers began to make their way across the barren alien terrain. All three of them had to be careful with their footing with all the uneven rocks and gnarly trees that they occasionally had to traverse. All in the eerie half-light provided by the stars in the sky.

“So how come the Boneyard doesn’t have a proper sun?” Ace wondered. “I didn’t think life could develop on a world that didn’t have a sun.”

“When the Grendel came up with the insidious idea of hiding their planet so that they could scuttle unsuspecting ships they didn’t cut any corners. They thought of everything. It wasn’t enough to just cloak the entire planet; they moved it as well right across their solar system as far away from their sun as they could possibly get. The air we’re breathing right now is all thanks to a planet-wide life support system that operates from an enormous underground generator.” The Doctor explained.

“Wow! That’s a bit extreme!” Ace remarked.

“The Grendel are geniuses in their own twisted little way. Unfortunately they apply their genius to satisfying their own voracious appetites.” The Doctor frowned.

“So how long before we start coming upon wrecked space ships then?” Ace wondered.

“It’s unlikely that we will.” Bernice replied. “At least not in the sense you’re expecting. The Grendel waste nothing. When a ship crashes they will not only devour everyone that was on board, but they’ll cannibalise every part of the ship and incorporate it into their own technology. They’re the ultimate scavengers.”

“You almost sound like you admire them!” Ace observed. “How do we know all of this anyway?”

“Remember that survivor we mentioned before? He wrote a book about his ordeal that went into very great detail about all that he witnessed and experienced.” Bernice explained. “It was a best seller. I think I have a signed first edition back at home!”

“So how come no one has sent a battle fleet to blast the Boneyard out of space now that they know about it?” Ace asked incredulously. “That’s what I would’ve done!”

“They did!” the Doctor told her. “It failed. They were able to find the planet because they were looking for it, but as soon as they were close enough they were ensnared in the planet’s tractor beam and wrecked upon the planet before they could fire a single shot. They never tried again. Now space travellers just try and steer clear of this sector, but occasionally there are some who aren’t in the know that still fall prey to the Grendels’ little trap.”

“And we’ve come here voluntarily for an archaeological expedition?” Ace shook her head.

“You could always go back to the TARDIS.” The Doctor teased.

“Not a chance, Professor.” Ace smiled in reply.

“That’s what I thought you’d say!” the Doctor replied with a twinkle in his eyes.

It was then that something caught Ace’s attention. One of the stars in the sky seemed to be twinkling brighter than the others and it was getting bigger!

“Professor, I think we might be in for some company. Look!” she pointed at the looming ‘star’.

“It must be an incoming ship!” the Doctor realised. “And judging from its trajectory it’s coming straight for us! Run!!!”

Ace and Bernice did not need telling twice and they began to run in the opposite direction of the encroaching space ship, the Doctor hard on their heels.

Whomever was piloting the ship seemed to know what they were doing as they were doing their level best to bring the ship into a controlled crash landing. As the Doctor and his friends ran the ship touched down behind them, but continued to scrape along the ground for several yards, tossing up rocks and bits of tree in its wake. The Doctor, Ace and Bernice could feel the whoosh of air as it ploughed on as if it were in hot pursuit, intent on flattening them. They ducked to avoid the flying debris then at the very last minute…

“Jump!!!” the Doctor cried.

He dived off to the right as the two women dived to the left and fortunately the ship skidded on past them for a few more metres before it eventually came to a halt. Had they not jumped clear when they did it would surely have overtaken them and pulverised them into the ground.

The Doctor and his friends picked themselves up and dusted off their clothes, glad to still be alive.

“Come on!” the Doctor instructed. “There may be survivors on board that could use our help.”

They made their way over to the landed ship. As space ships went it wasn’t a very big one. It was around the size of a medium sized Earth jet plane, just large enough to carry a few passengers or some small cargo.

As they drew nearer they saw that a hatch was beginning to open on the side of the ship.

The Doctor and the two women waited to see who would emerge. They found themselves kissing dirt again as they were greeted by a barrage of laser fire from within the ship.

The Doctor held his hat desperately to his head as laser bolts whizzed over and around him, sending geysers of rock and soil exploding into the air.

“Cease firing!!!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “We’re not your enemy!”

A side glance told him that both Ace and Bernice had their weapons in their hands. He had to end this quickly before this descended into a gun battle.

“Please!” he shouted. “If we were the Grendel we would surely have returned fire by now!”

Something of his words must have registered with whoever was inside the ship because the laser barrage ceased.

“Who are you?” a male voice called from within. “What are you doing on the Boneyard?”

The Doctor stood up cautiously and held his hat and umbrella over his head to show that they were all he carried; a glance at Ace and Bernice and they were reluctantly putting up their blaster weapons.

“My name is the Doctor and these are my two friends Ace and Professor Bernice Summerfield. We’re here on an archaeological expedition” the Doctor called into the ship.

“Benny? Benny’s here?” the male voice sounded pleasantly surprised and a head popped around the open hatchway.

The head belonged to a grizzled looking man with grey stubble all over his head and face. His left eye was bionic, but despite his fearsome features he was smiling from ear to ear. When he clocked Bernice the man stepped fully into view. He was a tall, well-built muscular man wearing brown khaki combat fatigues not dissimilar to the green ones worn by Ace. He was cradling a heavy looking blaster weapon in his hands.

“Maxell Drake!” Bernice exclaimed. “Is it really you?”

“It’s really me!” Maxell confirmed.

“Who the bloody hell is Maxell Drake when he’s at home?” Ace wondered.

“Maxell Drake,” Bernice replied. “Is the only man to ever escape from the Boneyard alive!”

“When you said that you knew the man who escaped from here I didn’t think that you meant personally!” Ace smirked.

“How do you think I got my signed first edition?” Bernice responded with a smile.

“That’s not all I gave you if I recall!” Maxell said with a cheeky wink. He turned his head to whoever was in the ship behind him. “It’s okay, we can come out. If these people are with Benny then they’re cool.”

Maxell jumped down from the hatch and joined the Doctor, Ace and Bernice.

Three other men stepped into view and quickly jumped down too.

The first two men were clearly identical twins, though in this time period, Ace thought to herself, they could just as easily have been clones. They were both tall, bulky, broad shouldered blondes that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a men’s clothing catalogue. Both wore mirrored sun glasses and both wore white vests and black combat trousers that would have made Bruce Willis jealous. They carried heavy blaster rifles, but also had an array of other weaponry strapped in various places all over their well chiselled bodies. Ace decided that they might as well have been wearing tattoos on their foreheads declaring themselves as hired muscle because there was no doubt in her mind that that was exactly what they were.

The last man was practically a dwarf in comparison to Maxell and the twins. He wasn’t short in stature, but he lacked their muscle and looked more like he was dressed for a business meeting with his short dark hair and navy blue dress suit. If the twins were hired muscle then this was the man doing the hiring.

“So what brings you to the Boneyard, Maxell?” Bernice enquired. “Surely you didn’t like it here so much that you decided to come back here? And what’s this? You’re running package holidays here now?” She indicated his entourage.

“Time for introductions and explanations later.” Maxell told her. “Right now we’d better get out of here and find some place we can hide. The Grendel know we’re here and they’ll be coming.”

“What about your ship?” the Doctor asked. “When the Grendel get here they’ll strip it of any useful parts they can find.”

“They can have it!” Maxell informed him. “I mean to get off this planet by other means when the time comes.”

The Doctor was intrigued but knew better than to ask questions at this present moment in time.

“Okay people, let’s move on out, follow me!” Maxell declared and just like that the newcomer had taken charge and even the Doctor found himself following this man to wherever he was leading them.

 

Maxell moved across the Boneyard’s terrain as sure footedly as if he were a native. He seemed to know exactly where he was going and sure enough it wasn’t long before he was leading them into a little cave hidden amongst a copse of skeletal black trees. Once they were inside he relaxed a little which was signal enough to everyone else that they could do the same.

“Right, time to answer your questions, Benny.” Maxell announced. “We should be okay here for a little while at least.”

He turned to the men he had arrived with and started out with introductions.

“This here,” he started with the slender suited man, “is Carlton Henrikson. He’s the reason why we’re here. About three months ago his sister was out on a pleasure cruise in her own personal ship. She wandered a little too closely to the Boneyard and her ship went down. Carlton here reckons that she might still be alive and he came looking for me, asked me if I would bring him here to help look for her and bring her back. He offered me a whole heap of credits for the job, but truth be told, if I had a sister go down here then I’d want to come get her too. That doesn’t mean I’m doing this for free, it just means that I’m not doing this for the money. You get me?”

“I think so.” Bernice replied with a wry smile.

“Vincent and Virgil here are brothers, in case you couldn’t tell!” he winked. “They’re mercenaries that came highly recommended by me and Carlton was good enough to hire them on my say so.”

“Do you really think you can find his sister alive here?” Ace asked.

“Trust me,” it was Carlton himself who replied with a knowing smile. “If you knew my sister, Caitlin, then you wouldn’t doubt it for a second!”

“Sounds like my kind of woman.” Maxell replied with a grin. “So did I hear you guys right? You all are here on an archaeological expedition??”

“That’s right.” Bernice confirmed.

“What is there on this planet that could possibly be of interest to an archaeologist?” Maxell wondered curiously.

Bernice briefly explained to him about the lost Martian Sword of Skarzak.

“The Ice Warriors send you themselves or is this a personal expedition?” Maxell asked.

“I will return the sword to the Ice Warriors once I find it, but I came of my own accord. They didn’t send me.” Bernice replied.

“Man, you’ve got some balls for a lovely lady like yourself, coming here voluntarily.” Maxell remarked with an air of admiration.

“I didn’t come alone as you can see.” Bernice said. “Ace here has trained with Marine Space Corps in Dalek fighting and the Doctor here, well you wouldn’t want to underestimate him, that’s all I’m saying.”

“The Professor is what the Daleks have nightmares about.” Ace added with a smile.

“Is that right?” Maxell eyed the Doctor, unsure what to make of the little man who did not appear to be carrying any visible weapons.

“It’s my singing!” the Doctor dead panned dryly.

“Now that we’re here what’s the plan of action?” Carlton was wondering.

“We have the bio-detector tuned to your sister’s DNA. We’ll just follow wherever that leads us.” Maxell replied, removing a small portable black device with flashing green lights from one of his pockets.

“Surely if that thing is picking up her DNA then that must mean she’s alive, right?” Ace wondered.

“Not necessarily.” Maxell replied. “This will detect Caitlin’s bio-signature dead or alive. The readings will get stronger when we’re nearer and they’ll positively sing and dance if we’re near her and she’s alive.”

“I see.” Ace nodded her understanding.

Maxell consulted the detector.

“Okay people, according to this we need to be heading this way!” he pointed off to the east and began walking in that direction. Everyone else fell in behind him.

“I’m curious.” Said the Doctor as they walked. “How were you able to achieve such a relatively smooth landing?”

“You forget, Doctor, that I’ve been here before. When my ship was pulled down here all those years ago I survived here for eighteen months before I was able to escape. In that time I learnt a great deal about the Grendel and some of their technology. When we came here this time I was looking for the place and knew what to expect. The Grendel detected us the minute we got in range of their sensors and locked on their tractor beam, but instead of trying to escape and pull away like other ships would I rode the ship with the beam. When they accelerated I did too and that way I was able to control our descent to a certain degree and bring about a crash landing that we could all walk away from.” Maxell explained.

“Very good.” The Doctor remarked, clearly impressed. “And how do you intend to escape the planet when you’re ready to leave?”

“Same way I did last time, Doc. Didn’t you read my book?” Maxell asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re going to steal one of the Grendels’ own ships and pilot it out of here?” the Doctor replied in answer to his question.

“So you have read my book.” Maxell beamed. “Anyhow, Doctor, how did you guys get here?”

“We came in here in my ship. It has its own means of by passing the Grendels’ traps.” The Doctor explained.

“Aren’t you afraid that the Grendel will get their grubby paws upon it?” Maxell wondered.

The Doctor smiled thinly. “No, not at all. The TARDIS can look after itself and I did remember to set the HADS before we came out here.” He replied enigmatically.

“Well if my plan goes wrong it’s nice to think that we could all perhaps make it off here in your ship should we need to.” Maxell remarked.

“Perhaps.” The Doctor agreed. “If we all survive.”

The party continued on in silence for a while. So far there had been no sign of any Grendel and that worried the Doctor, though he had no doubt that they would be making an appearance sooner rather than later.

Ace sidled up to the Doctor so that she could talk to him privately.

“We need to ditch the dead weight, Professor. They’re not here on the same quest as us. Looking for this lost girl isn’t going to find Benny’s lost sword, is it?” she said to him quietly.

“There is always safety in numbers, Ace. If we help them out then they may well be inclined to help us out.” The Doctor told her with a conspiratorial wink.

“Do you think we can trust them?” Ace wondered.

“Well, Bernice knows Maxell. He seems genuine enough to me. He’s already survived this place once so if anyone stands a chance of surviving it again it would be him.” The Doctor mused.

“What about Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum?” Ace asked with a sly glance at the blonde twins.

“They’ve been hired as extra protection. They’ll do exactly what they’ve been paid to do so I don’t think we need to worry too much about them.” The Doctor replied.

“And the brother?” Ace added.

“He’s willing to put his own life on the line to come to this deadly planet to find a sister who in all likelihood is already dead. I think that speaks volumes about the quality of his character, don’t you?” the Doctor remarked with a smile.

“Hmm, maybe!” Ace shrugged, though she still harboured her doubts.

Suddenly the party halted as Maxell stopped ahead of them, holding a hand in the air to signal that they should do the same. The Boneyard veteran listened intently.

A rumbling, buzzing sound could be heard approaching their position from the west.

“They’re coming!” Maxell declared simply.

They all turned to face in the direction that the noise was coming from. Those that had weapons were now holding them ready.

“We won’t be able to run. That sounds like one of their meat wagons. There will be three warriors and an operator. Each one will be armed differently and will have its own different cybernetic enhancement, but their organic parts are vulnerable to fire just like anyone else. Make your shots count. They’ll try to take us alive if they can… they prefer their meat fresh, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t kill us if they have to!” Maxell informed them as the ominous sounds drew nearer.

“Here they come!” Ace shouted as a large grey behemoth of a machine crested the hill and thundered down upon them.

The meat wagon resembled a larger version of an old Earth dumper truck that ran on caterpillar treads. There was a large container at the back which at this moment was filled with parts that had been stripped from Maxell’s ship. Several smaller, cage-like containers lined the outer rim of this larger one. It was clear that these were intended to hold the Grendels’ victims. For the moment these cages were empty. At the front of the wagon there was a large, roofless compartment that housed its Grendel occupants. The operator was a scrawny looking rat like creature with sickly pink skin. His lower torso had been grafted into the cockpit of the wagon so that both wagon and operator were essentially one and the same. Three warriors were stood in the area behind the cockpit. They all bore the same rat-like features as all Grendel though they all had subtle differences, not least of which was their skin colour. One was black with a patch of white over his right eye. The next one was white like an albino with the pink eyes to match. The third one was a light orangey-brown.

The black and white one had an electro-whip in place of its right hand, while the albino was toting what appeared to be a net launcher where its left arm would have been; orangey-brown had twin laser turrets mounted one on each shoulder and a chainsaw-like weapon attached to his right hand.

Maxell and the twins opened fire on the approaching wagon with their blaster rifles while Ace and Bernice supported them with their hand blasters. The Doctor and Carlton stood at the back and could only look on as the battle was joined.

The wagon, big as it was, presented an easy target for the barrage of laser-fire that greeted it, but the lethal energy bolts did not even touch it. As soon as the red bolts got within a few feet of the wagon they were deflected harmlessly into the air by an all but invisible barrier that shimmered and crackled with a blue luminescence as the lasers struck it.

“They’ve got a force-field!” Maxell realised. “Fall back! We need to regroup and come up with another plan.”

Everyone began to back away from the encroaching vehicle as quickly as they could.

Orangey-brown cackled maniacally and unleashed a burst of fire from his shoulder turrets.

Green bolts of energy sizzled through the air, churning up the ground around the retreating party.

“Spread out!” Ace called. “We’re sitting ducks if we stay together.”

The group fanned out in different directions, taking care to avoid any laser-fire that came their way.

“Think we might need some number nine, eh, Ace?” Bernice grinned.

She suddenly began to run towards the wagon firing her blaster at the operator.

Though her blasts were deflected Bernice did succeed in drawing the fire of Orangey-brown.

The Grendel focussed his next barrage on her and Bernice was forced to jump and roll away as nimbly as she could to avoid being tagged.

Ace had not been idle, however, during Bernice’s apparent gung-ho attack. While Orangey-brown was distracted she had run towards the wagon; approaching it from a different direction, one hand reaching into her rucksack as she went. If her hunch was correct then the force-field was only intended to repel artillery fire and not organic matter. Sure enough, as she got within the limits of the force-field’s protection Ace found that she was able to get by without being repelled. In her hand she now held a silver cylinder with a dial set into the top of it. This cylinder was one of Ace’s special home-made Nitro-9 explosives. She twisted the dial, setting it to go off in five seconds and then lobbed the cylinder up into the compartment of the wagon containing the operator and his passengers. The device thrown, Ace turned and sprinted back out of the range of the force-field and away from the wagon.

“Take cover!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs.

Everybody threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads.

BA-BOOM!!!!!

The front of the wagon was engulfed in a ball of flame. The left caterpillar tread was buckled by the force of the explosion and because the wagon had been moving at the time of detonation this caused the ravaged hulk of the vehicle to flip diagonally into the air and hang there as if suspended for several seconds before crashing down again in a metallic mangled heap mere feet away from where Ace had taken cover.

Ace stood up and admired her handy work. The meat wagon had been reduced to a twisted wreck, belching flames; charred and bloodied bits of Grendel protruded from the smouldering mess or were scattered around the vehicle upon the ground. Ace allowed herself a grim smile of satisfaction.

“Wicked!” she declared.

The whip wielding black and white Grendel suddenly appeared in front of her as if from nowhere. No one had seen him jump down from the wagon seconds before the explosion. He hadn’t gotten completely clear in time though as the shard of shrapnel protruding from his bleeding abdomen attested. Now that he was out of the wagon, Ace could see that the Grendel’s legs were entirely mechanical.

Ace flung herself to the side as the Grendel cracked his whip at her. Showers of rock exploded from the ground where she had been standing.

Everyone else who had a weapon was on their feet and training a gun barrel upon the creature that was intently trying to lash Ace with its electrified tendril.

“No! Don’t kill it!” the Doctor was shouting. “We need him alive!”

His shout came just a moment too late as four separate laser blasts slammed into the beast’s body and sent it toppling onto its face, black smoke pouring from the fatal wounds it had sustained.

The Doctor ran over to the fallen Grendel and vainly checked it for signs of life. When he could find none he angrily glared at those who had opened fire, which included Bernice.

“I said don’t kill it!” the Doctor snarled in quiet fury. “I wanted the Grendel alive so we could question him for information.”

“It was attacking Ace!” Bernice argued.

“Ace can look after herself. You know that as well as I do!” the Doctor retorted.

“You never would have gotten anything from it anyway, Doctor.” Maxell said in Bernice’s defence.

“I have my own methods.” The Doctor replied darkly. “The next time we see a Grendel I want us to capture it alive, do you understand?”

“Completely.” Maxell replied staring back at the Doctor unflinchingly. “If you really want to catch one of them you should have said. I know how we can nab one.”

The Doctor broke into a grim smile.

“Tell me more!” he said.  

“It’s quite simple really.” Maxell explained. “The Grendel are gonna miss these guys when they don’t come back so they’ll send more Grendel out looking for them. All we gotta do is wait around long enough for them to show up, only we’ll have a little surprise waiting for them when they get here.”

“I don’t like it.” Carlton said. “Every minute we waste here is another minute that my sister could wind up getting killed.”

“If your sister is still alive after all this time then waiting a couple more hours isn’t gonna make much difference.” Maxell pointed out. “If the Doctor reckons he can get one of these things to talk then you never know, we might be able to get some intel on your sister’s whereabouts that’ll make our search a whole lot easier.”

Carlton nodded in reluctant agreement. “Very well. What did you have in mind?”

“Okay, gather round people. This is what we’re going to do!” Maxell announced and everyone huddled around him and listened to the plan.

 

Gronkel Vex always relished the opportunity to get out in one of the Grabbers. He and his litter-brother Narkel had been sent out by the Big Chief to look for the meat wagon team that had been sent out over two hours ago to collect the survivors from the ship that had been wrecked earlier that day. If the meat had managed to evade capture and somehow scuttle the wagon then Gronkel and his brother had instructions to find them too and bring them back.

It was extremely rare for the Grendel to come up against meat capable of fighting back, but it did happen on occasion. When it did the meat was usually punished for causing trouble. They would be kept alive and dismembered one piece a day, every day. Each day they would be forced to watch as the severed appendage was eaten. This would continue daily until the meat was reduced to just a head. The Grendel had a means of keeping a head alive so that it could watch the rest of the body being eaten. Once only the head remained then it too would be devoured, lifted towards a voracious Grendel mouth whilst still aware and eaten alive. Such was the fate of meat that fought back.

Grabbers were armoured mech-suits that were operated by a single Grendel. They towered over most humanoids by several feet and walked on huge striding mechanical legs. Long telescopic arms ending in four grabbing claws gave the Grabbers their name. The Grendel often took Grabbers on raids to other planets. They would land a raid ship on some primitive world or under-developed colony and Grabbers would stride down the ramps and into the panic stricken crowds snatching meat to take back to the larders. Each Grabber had a cage built into the back of it in which meat was dropped once it had been captured.

Gronkel spotted the wreckage of the meat wagon on the horizon and signalled to his brother.

As one they picked up pace and made their way over to investigate. When they drew nearer they noticed some meat pinned helplessly by one leg under a piece of the mangled wagon.

Surely this carnage was not the work of one piece of meat? If there had been others then they appeared to be long gone. However, it was unusual for meat to abandon its wounded.

Gronkel sensed a trap and advised Narkel that they should approach with caution.

 

As Ace pretended to lie helplessly trapped under a piece of charred metal she spied the approach of the towering mech-suits in the near distance. They were a little bigger than she had been anticipating, but she was sure that Maxell’s plan would still work. The mechs actually looked kind of funny in a way with the heads of their Grendel operators sticking out at the top. They resembled large fat, gangly robots with little rat heads sticking out of them. Ace suppressed a grin as the mechs drew nearer.

 

Gronkel instructed Narkel to hang back at a safe distance.

“If I am attacked do not seek to assist me. Return to the lair and bring back reinforcements.” He growled.

“Yes, brother.” Narkel nodded his agreement.

He watched as his litter-brother strode cautiously towards the meat.

 

This wasn’t good, Ace thought to herself, one of the Grendel was hanging back as the other approached. They must suspect something. She needed them both to be close. There was no other choice, but to stick to the plan. The Grendel was towering over her now in its mech-suit. She would have to act now and they’d have to bring down the second mech some other way.

Ace depressed the timer on the EMP grenade concealed in her hand and rolled it towards the mech.

The tiny egg-like device tumbled between the mech’s legs and came to a halt. The Grendel head peering out of the top looked down, unsure of what was happening.

“Huh?” it grunted in its harsh guttural voice.

Then…

WUMP!!!

The grenade detonated in a blinding flash of blue light and Ace covered her eyes with one hand.

When she looked again all of the moving mechanisms that had been active on the mech before were now dangling limp and inert. In fact the whole thing seemed to be lurching dangerously forward, Ace realised in alarm as the now useless mech began to topple towards her.

Quickly she scrambled from under the wreckage that she had been pretending to be pinned by and rolled out of the way. Just in time as the stricken mech and its occupant came crashing down heavily on the spot where she had just been.

Ace regarded the fallen mech and its unconscious Grendel operator, glad not to have been caught beneath it when it fell.

She didn’t see the telescopic arm of the second mech reaching for her. The claws grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up into the air, pulling her back towards the waiting mech.

“Oi! Let me go you rat-faced toe rag or I’ll set my cat on you!” Ace cried out, furious at being caught unawares.

“Ace!” the Doctor’s voice called from behind her.

Ace saw the Doctor and the others emerge from behind the rocky outcrop behind which they’d been hiding. Then she was tossed unceremoniously into the cage on the mech’s back and the next thing she knew her captor was turning and sprinting back the way it had come.

The Doctor and the others watched helplessly as the second mech dashed away faster than anyone could believe such a large machine could run.

“He’s got Ace!” the Doctor cried desperately.

“There’s no way we’ll catch that thing now!” Maxell said regretfully.

The Doctor turned his gaze upon their captive that lay nearby.

“Then I think it’s time we had a talk with our new friend!” he declared with grim determination.

The Doctor walked over to the inert form of the Grabber mech where the Grendel poking out of the top was starting to come round. As the mech had fallen on its front, the Grendel inside found himself staring at the ground.

“What are you going to do with him, Doctor?” Bernice wondered.

“With him?” the Doctor replied. “Nothing! That machine of his is a different matter entirely, though.”

The Doctor climbed onto the back of the mech and used the metal tip of his umbrella to prise open a hatch. Then, hooking his umbrella into one of his outer jacket pockets, he buried both hands into the mess of wires and circuit boards that he had uncovered.

“Hey! What are you doing back there, meat?” the Grendel called out in alarm.

“Never you mind!” the Doctor replied. “You’ll find out soon enough!”

He delved even deeper into the exposed back of the Grabber with one hand and with a swift tug he extracted something from within and brought it out as carefully as he could.

Everyone gathered around looked closely at the little box that the Doctor held with its wiry entrails spiralling in all directions. Even the Grendel was craning his neck around to try and see.

“What is that, Doctor?” Maxell asked.

The Doctor didn’t answer straight away. He closed the hatch and jumped down off the back of the Grabber.

“This…” he held up the box, “…is essentially what controls the movements of this mech-suit. The controls that our Grendel friend uses are all attached to this. However, if I do this, this and this…”

The Doctor made a few swift adjustments to the little box.

“I can turn it into this!” he declared with a wry smile. With a few taps and twists of certain wires and switches the inert Grabber suddenly hummed back into life and without warning lurched clumsily back onto its feet.

“What is happening?” the Grendel cried out in alarm.

“A remote control!” the Doctor explained with a delighted grin. “Now you can’t go anywhere or do anything without our say so!”

He handed the box to a bewildered Carlton. “Here, perhaps you’d like to take charge of that.”

The Doctor gave him some brief instructions on how to operate the box. Carlton experimented with the wires and switches. The Grendel’s alarm increased at its mech-suit took two involuntary steps backwards and then forwards again. Then the arms began to rotate clockwise, then anti-clockwise and then, with Carlton grinning like a school boy, the arms began to flap up and down like a demented bird.

“Stop!” the Grendel screeched. “STOP!!!!”

“Good, good! I think you’re getting the hang of it.” The Doctor beamed in approval.

“Well that’s great, Doctor. Really it is. But how does it help us?” Maxell wondered.

“Before these things arrived I had planned on using a form of telepathy to acquire information from our captive, but my plans altered as soon as I saw what they had sent after us.” The Doctor explained. “We can use this machine as a Trojan horse to gain entry into the Grendels’ lair. We get inside the cage and pretend to be prisoners and march this thing right through their front door. I’ll tape up the mouth of our Grendel friend so that he can’t go shouting any warnings.”

“How will that help us find my sister?” Carlton wondered. “We don’t know that she’s in their lair or anywhere near it for that matter.”

“Caitlin may not be in there, but Ace will be. Don’t worry; we’ll still be looking out for your sister on the way.” The Doctor assured him.

“I’m sorry, Doctor.” Maxell said. “But my primary mission here is finding Carlton’s sister. I’m sorry that your friend has been taken and if we can save her we will. When we were following the bio-tracer it was leading us away from the lair and not towards it. We need to follow up on that and see where the tracer takes us before we even think of going after Ace.”

“Ace can look after herself, Doctor. She still has her blaster and her rucksack with her.” Bernice reminded her friend.

“Yes, she does.” The Doctor agreed with a sigh. “Alright. We’ll follow the tracer and see where it takes us.

“Thank you, Doctor.” Maxell said with a sympathetic smile. He consulted the tracer in his hand. “Okay, we need to head out this way!”

With those words they were heading east again. Carlton walked alongside the Grabber, making it walk with them using the control box.

“I don’t suppose you will tell us if my sister is still alive?” Carlton asked the Grendel.

“Gronkel will tell you nothing!” the creature snarled sullenly. He was not used to being a prisoner to meat.

“I didn’t think so.” Carlton smiled grimly.

They continued on in silence.

 

Narkel Vex was blissfully unaware that he was carrying a passenger into the Grendel lair and not a prisoner. Once he had been confident that he was not being pursued, he had slowed his Grabber to a walking pace. Ace had taken this opportunity to climb to the top of her little cage so that she could see where they were going. Fortunately, her captor was unable to turn his head very much within the confines of his mech-suit, so he did not know what she was up to.

When the time was right Ace had no doubt she could escape easily enough. So far things were going well according to the Professor’s plans, though she hadn’t quite expected to get herself snatched quite so soon. If Bernice knew what she and the Professor were up to then she wouldn’t be best pleased. Oh they would pick up her little Martian sword if they found it along the way, but that was by no means the real reason why they were here.

It wasn’t long before Ace spotted what had to be the Grendel lair. The structure and architecture were bizarre to say the least. It looked like the hulls of several hundred wrecked space ships of varying shapes and designs had been brought together and assembled into a vast labyrinthine citadel of gargantuan proportions. Ace could well imagine that it would be easy to get lost within such a structure. In the centre of this citadel Ace recognised the shape of a Martian Chimera Class battle cruiser that had been made to stand upright upon what had once been its engines so that it served as some sort of tower. Probably the abode of the Grendels’ leader, Ace mused. Bernice’s sword would probably be in there if it was anywhere. Ace decided that before she was through here she would go there and get the sword for her friend, by way of an apology for her archaeological trip being turned into another of the Doctor’s grand schemes.

There were several entrances to the citadel and Ace’s captor made his way towards one of them now. As soon as they were in Ace would make her move.

As they drew nearer, Ace spotted a couple of other Grendel man handling a familiar looking blue box through one of the other entrances.

“Remembered to set the HADS, eh, Professor?” Ace chuckled quietly to herself.

She took out her blaster and adjusted the setting, then took careful aim at the TARDIS before pulling the trigger.

PFFT!!!

A tracer dart flew out of the special extra barrel on her gun and attached itself discreetly to the TARDIS just between the ‘O’ on ‘Box’.

“Just so we can find you later.” Ace said to herself.

Then they were passing into the Grendel lair. She was in!

Ace waited until they were going down a corridor that had no other Grendel present and that had a little junction that she could duck down before she slowly and quietly climbed down the outside of the cage and lowered herself to the floor. She watched her ex-captor marching off down the corridor oblivious to the fact that he’d just lost his prisoner. Ace allowed herself a self-satisfied smile before ducking down the adjoining corridor.

She did not notice the figure that dropped down from an open vent in the ceiling behind her. Not until they’d come up stealthily and grabbed her from behind.

 

“You know, now that we’ve been here for a while there’s one thing that bugs me that wasn’t mentioned in your book, Maxell.” Bernice announced as they were continuing their pursuit of the tracer’s lead across the barren Boneyard landscape.

“What’s that, Benny?” Maxell wondered.

“Since we’ve been here the only indigenous life we’ve seen is the Grendel. We haven’t seen any form of animal life at all.” Bernice observed.

“Okay. And what does that have to do with my book?” Maxell asked.

“In the entire book you fail to mention how you survived here for eighteen months without any food. You can’t have hunted the local animals because so far as we’ve seen there aren’t any. So what did you do? Live on nuts and berries? Eat dirt?” Bernice wondered.

“It’s a valid question and there’s a very good reason why it isn’t in the book.” Maxell told her.

“Care to explain?” Bernice pressed. She could see that everyone else was also interested as all eyes were on Maxell, including those of their Grendel prisoner.

“Okay, I’ll explain.” He agreed. “But not in front of that thing!” Maxell pointed at the Grendel.

“Carlton, do you think that you could make him walk on ahead?” the veteran requested.

Carlton nodded his ascent and flicked a few switches. The Grabber picked up its pace and marched on ahead of them just out of earshot.

Once he was satisfied that the Grendel could not hear him Maxell began his story.

“The reason that there isn’t any other indigenous animal life on this planet is because the Grendel hunted them all to extinction centuries ago. So voracious is their appetite as a species that they did not stop to think what would happen if they ran out of prey animals until it was almost too late. I say almost because some of the wiser elders of the Grendel did realise that if they continued to hunt the way that they did then very soon there would be nothing left for them to hunt. It seemed inevitable that the Grendel would resort to cannibalism if this were to occur. However, rather than try and kerb their hunting, they instead came up with another solution. They were already technologically advanced enough for space travel. They started sending out the first ships to bring back meat from other planets or from other ships that they encountered. Then some bright spark came up with the idea of moving and cloaking the entire planet and using a tractor beam to pull down unsuspecting space craft that ventured too close. They made sure that their trap lay upon one of the well-used trade shipping routes so that they’d get a decent amount of ships coming their way. So when they ran out of indigenous animals to prey upon they preyed upon species from other planets instead. They’ve been doing it ever since for hundreds of years, this and the frequent raids they send out. For all their vicious barbarity there has never been war on this planet between the Grendel because they all live in pursuit of the same goal. Well… almost all anyway.” Maxell paused.

“What do you mean?” Bernice asked.

“Well, how do you think I know so much about Grendel history? Because a Grendel told me, that’s why. A Grendel that wasn’t preoccupied with trying to eat me. It doesn’t happen very often, but occasionally a Grendel will be born that has no desire to eat meat… a vegetarian Grendel. They generally don’t stay on the Boneyard for very long as they are persecuted by the other Grendel for their perceived abnormality. Those that aren’t killed outright are driven off world to live a nomadic existence in space. Some make a life for themselves hidden out here in the wilderness and it was one such Grendel that found me one day when I was near starving to death and took me in.

His name was Vrakel Naig. He showed me which roots were edible so that I could find something to survive on until such time that I could escape. There’s also a black fungus that grows on some of these dead trees that cooks up into a nice broth if you know how to prepare it. I do, thanks to Vrakel. He helped me to steal the ship that got me off here and was able to supply me with the security codes that got me passed the shields and back out into space. It’s because I was protecting him that none of this is mentioned in the book. If one Grendel were to have read my book and seen some reference to me having help from a vegetarian Grendel, they would have hunted Vrakel down and destroyed him. So now you know.” Maxell finished.

“So that’s why you didn’t want our Grendel friend to hear!” the Doctor realised with a smile of approval.

“That’s right, Doctor.” Maxell nodded; then all of a sudden his attention was caught by an increase in activity from the tracer.

“We might be in luck!” Maxell declared. “If this thing is right then Caitlin Henrikson may be just over this hill!”

The group broke into a run, overtaking the remote controlled Grabber as they crested the hill.

Ahead of them the terrain looked like it had been the site of a plane crash, except in this case it had been a small space craft rather than a plane. The ship itself was conspicuous in its absence, though this was no surprise to anyone as they knew that it would have been salvaged by the Grendel. What told them that a ship had crashed here was the churned up ground and rocks that scarred the area around them, along with the bent or snapped trees. And then there was the small pool of blood.

Maxell sprinted towards the three month old dried blood pool, the bleep of the tracer becoming ever shriller as he neared it.

“No doubt about it. This is Caitlin’s blood, but no Caitlin.” Maxell stated rather un-necessarily as everyone had already reached that conclusion on their own.

Carlton came up beside Maxell and dropped to his knees in despair.

“No!” he cried, tears welling in his eyes. “I refuse to believe that this is all that’s left of my sister.”

“It might not be.” Maxell told him reassuringly. “There are ways of shielding your bio-signature from detection. No doubt the Grendel are advanced enough to have their own bio-tracing technology and if Caitlin was able to elude capture after the initial crash then she may well have found some way of shielding herself to prevent detection.”

“Is that what you did?” Carlton asked, a glimmer of hope returning to his tear flecked eyes.

“The space suit I was wearing when I crashed did possess rudimentary camouflage tech. Yeah, it helped.” Maxell replied with a smile.

“Then she could still be out there somewhere.” Carlton enthused. He grabbed Maxell’s offered arm and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

“Erm, guys!” Bernice’s nervous sounding voice interrupted them.

They all turned to see what Bernice was concerned about.

Behind them there stood a lone Grendel and he was pointing a large nine-barrelled plasma-thrower straight at them.

 

Ace had been reassured to discover that her mysterious assailant was human and not Grendel. She had willingly followed the slender human in the lilac space suit and helmet into the vents where she had been led to a little alcove area that looked like it had been turned into some sort of make-shift campsite. Once there the mysterious stranger removed their helmet to reveal the face of a beautiful young woman with short black hair cut into a bob and sparkling blue eyes.

“You must be either very brave or very stupid to want to infiltrate the Grendel lair. Who are you?” the woman asked with a smile in her eyes, but not quite on her lips.

“I could say the same for you. Living here right under their noses.” Ace smirked. “I’m guessing that you must be Caitlin?”

“You know who I am?” Caitlin asked with a hint of surprise.

“Your brother is here looking for you. He hired that guy, Maxell Drake, the one who escaped from here once before.” Ace told her.

“My brother Carlton is here? Looking for me?” Caitlin asked incredulously.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Ace confirmed. She was unprepared for the response that followed.

Caitlin burst out into hysterical laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Ace wondered. Caitlin’s laugh was rather infectious and it was all Ace could do not to laugh along with her.

“My brother hates my guts. He’d like nothing more than to see me dead so that he doesn’t have to share our inheritance with me.” Caitlin told her.

“Then why would he risk his life coming here to look for you?” Ace asked, puzzled.

“He probably wants to make sure I’m really dead. Our bankers probably won’t sign my share of the inheritance over to him unless they can have confirmation that I’m actually dead. I’m surprised that he’d come here personally though. He must really want to be sure.” Caitlin chuckled.

“So that means he’s hired Maxell and the twins to kill you, not find you.” Ace realised.

“Not Maxell. He’s an honourable man from what I’ve heard. Carlton probably sold him on a sob story coupled with an offer of a lot of money. No, if Carlton is going to kill me then he’ll do it himself. He’s always been a great believer in that old saying: if you want something done properly then do it yourself.” Caitlin explained. “You still haven’t told me who you are and why you’re so keen to sneak in here?”

Ace smiled. “I’m Ace. I came here with my friends the Professor, sorry, Doctor and Bernice.”

“You came here voluntarily? Of your own free will?” Caitlin asked dubiously.

“That’s right.” Ace grinned. “My friend Bernice thinks we’re here on an archaeological expedition to find some old Martian sword that was lost here over five hundred years ago.”

“I see.” Caitlin replied. “So why are you really here?”

Ace told her.

 

The Grendel that stood before them was different to every other Grendel that they had encountered so far since arriving on the Boneyard. This one had no cybernetic enhancements whatsoever. It was entirely organic from its head to its arms, right down to its legs and toes. Dressed in black body armour, the Grendel just stood there, its weapon levelled at them, staring into the eyes of Maxell Drake. Then it did something even more surprising than its cybernetically unenhanced physique.

It smiled.

Maxell smiled too.

Both human and Grendel cast aside their weapons and ran towards one another, arms outstretched.

When they met they embraced each other as warmly as if they were old friends or brothers.

“Vrakel, you old dog! I hoped I’d see you while I was here!” Maxell grinned as he happily clapped his friend on the back.

“It is good to see you, too, Maxell.” The Grendel agreed. “But why have you come back here and why have you brought these people? Are you running tourist trips here now? I heard about the book. Where’s my signed copy?”

Maxell chuckled. “Sorry, I didn’t bring it with me, but I’ll be sure to mail you one when I get back home again.” Then he explained to Vrakel why they were there.

“I see.” Vrakel nodded once Maxell had finished. “It just so happens that I have seen a human female. She’s smarter than you were, Maxell. She figured out about eating the roots and fungus without needing me to tell her.”

Carlton’s eyes lit up at this news.

“That sounds like, Caitlin. She always was a survivor.” He declared proudly.

“Where is she now?” Maxell wondered.

“Somehow she’s found a way of living right under the noses of my people at the lair citadel. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to introduce myself to her, but it hasn’t come yet. If you follow me I will take you to where I’ve seen her.” Vrakel replied.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Maxell agreed. He picked up his gun and slung it back over his shoulder.

“Come on, guys. We’re moving out again.”

 

When Ace had explained to Caitlin her real purpose for visiting the Boneyard she had been met with enthusiastic approval and an offer of help. It just so happened that Caitlin knew exactly how to get to where Ace needed to be and was leading her there right at this minute. The route took them through the vent ducts of the ship where Caitlin had set up her camp (an old Earth cargo ship so Ace had been told). These ducts were connected to those of another ship and so on and so forth. All part of the chimeric mismatch of ships that had been melded together to create the Grendel lair citadel. Caitlin dragged Ace through the ducts of around seven different ships before they reached their destination.

Ace and Caitlin looked down through the ventilation grill of what had once been an Ogron battle Mauler, into the chamber that they would need to gain access to. There were only two Grendel on guard. One hulking monstrosity with a steel crocodile-claw instead of a right hand and another slightly smaller, toting an arm cannon of some description.

“We’re going to need to take them out first before we can get to the generator.” Caitlin whispered.

“Leave that to me.” Ace said with a wink. She took out her blaster, making sure that she switched it back to the setting she needed. Then she slowly and stealthily removed the grill from in front of them, shifting it to the side.

“What are you going to do?” Caitlin wondered.

Ace said nothing. She just raised her blaster, holding it two handed. Sighting down the barrel Ace targeted the small Grendel with the arm cannon first. He was the only one who could potentially shoot back. Ace squeezed the trigger.

Her blaster buzzed once and the Grendel toppled over backwards, dead before he hit the floor with a smoking laser hole burned into his forehead.

The other Grendel looked up in alarm at where the shot had come from. He just had time to spot Ace before he too was felled by a single laser blast that drilled through his left eye socket into his brain.

“Back when I was training at the Marine Academy to fight Daleks, they always drilled it into you. Aim for the eye-piece. The Professor told me the same thing when we first met them together. Doesn’t just work on Daleks though.” Ace said with a smile as she blew non-existent smoke from the barrel of her blaster.

Caitlin just gawped in astonishment.

“Shall we go down?” Ace suggested.

Caitlin nodded. Together they clambered down from the vent ducts into the generator room.

Once they were down Ace unslung her rucksack from her shoulder and reached into it to pull out a silver canister that had red duct-tape wrapped around the middle.

“A special new brew that I mixed just for this occasion. I call it Nitro-11. Should be enough whack in this to take out this generator and render it irreparable.” Ace explained to Caitlin.

She turned the dial on the top of the canister and then jammed it into a groove on the generator where she felt it would cause the most damage.

“Right.” Ace said. “That’s set to go off in around ten minutes when that happens there’s gonna be chaos from all the Grendel in the citadel. We need to get out of here and find the Professor before any of that happens, but first there’s something else I need to do.”

“What’s that?” Caitlin asked.

“Do you think you could get me into the big chief’s tower?” Ace wondered.

Caitlin grinned. “Follow me!”

 

The rag-tag group that consisted of five humans, two Grendel and a Time Lord had arrived at the outskirts of the lair citadel. They were near the same entrance that Ace had been brought in by earlier.

“How do we want to play this?” Maxell wondered as they looked at the citadel from behind their cover of rocks.

“This is the area that I’ve spotted Caitlin coming and going from whenever she forages for food.” Vrakel informed them. “We could try sneaking in, but with there being such a large group of us I’m not sure we’d pull it off.”

“You forget that we have the distinct advantage of having not just one, but two Grendel in our midst.” The Doctor pointed out. “Perhaps you could get us in pretending that we’re your prisoners?”

“Not a bad idea.” Vrakel grinned. “Though I don’t think we’ll get much co-operation from our friend here.” He hooked a thumb at the disgruntled looking Gronkel Vex peering out from his Grabber.

“He doesn’t need to co-operate.” The Doctor assured him with a smile. “The Grabber is being remote controlled and Gronkel can’t raise the alarm if he’s unconscious. Tell me, Maxell, does your blaster have a stun setting?”

“Indeed it does, Doctor.” Maxell replied. He flicked a switch on the side of his gun, raised it to his shoulder and fired once at Gronkel’s exposed head. The stricken Grendel flinched once and then was still, his eyes closed.

“Excellent!” the Doctor proclaimed happily. “Now, shall we go in?”

It was then that they felt and heard the explosion. The ground shook with the force of the unseen detonation. Bernice could not help but notice a smile of satisfaction creep across the Doctor’s lips.

“You know something about this don’t you?” she riled at the Time Lord furiously.

Before the Doctor could answer a harsh hissing sound was heard coming from inside his coat then Ace’s voice.

“Professor, are you there? Come in, Professor!”

The Doctor extracted a walkie-talkie from one of his inner pockets and spoke into it.

“I’m here, Ace.” He said. “I trust all went well?”

 

Ace was in another ventilation shaft. This time in the tower that had once been a Chimera Class Martian battle cruiser. She and Caitlin were looking out onto a throne room slash dining hall of sorts where a large angry looking female Grendel was barking orders at her underlings. Who knew that Grendel society would be matriarchal, Ace had mused inwardly.

Right now she was reporting in with the Doctor on the walkie-talkie he had given her.

“Piece of cake, Professor.” She assured him. “You’ll never guess who’s with me?”

“Don’t tell me!” the Doctor’s voice said. “You found Caitlin!”

“Oh… you guessed!” Ace replied with mock disappointment. “Where are you now, Professor?”

“We’re right outside. We were about to come in when your bomb went off.” The Doctor explained.

“Stay there, Professor. We’ll come out to you. The TARDIS is here and I know where we can find it, but first I’ve got one more thing I need to do.” Ace told him.

“Alright, but be careful!” the Doctor fretted.

Ace switched off the walkie-talkie and returned it to her rucksack. All the while that she had been talking to the Doctor she had not taken her eyes off the Grendel chief. Grendel females it seemed were a lot bigger than their male counterparts and a lot more muscular too if that was possible. How Ace could tell that she was female was the fact that the chief was bare chested and sported six nipples. The chief, like Vrakel, sported no cybernetic enhancements, but she did have a sword. A rather fine looking golden sword with what looked like the head of a Martian Ice Lord carved into the hilt.

The chief was alone now as she had sent off all her underlings to investigate the explosion.

Ace removed the vent covering and dropped into the throne room.

The chief spotted her almost instantly and turned to face her, sword raised to strike.

“Meat!” the chief snarled furiously.

“Sorry, I can’t stop for dinner!” Ace replied. “Do you think I could have a look at your knife?”

Ace ran at the monstrous Grendel chieftain. The chief hissed and swung the sword at the same time that Ace raised her blaster…

 

“So basically you’re telling me that our whole purpose in coming here wasn’t to find my Martian sword, but to sabotage the Grendels’ cloaking generator?” Bernice was saying to the Doctor with barely concealed fury after he had finished explaining to her and everyone else.

“It’s your fault, Bernice.” The Doctor replied calmly. “You’re the one that leant me that copy of Maxell’s book. When I read it and learned about what the Grendel had been getting away with for hundreds of years I knew that I had to do something about it. By destroying that cloaking generator the Boneyard is now visible to everyone in the universe. No one need ever fall prey to their trap again and if anyone like, say the Ice Warriors wanted to launch a retaliatory strike upon the planet, well, who could blame them?”

“And my desire to come here and look for the Sword of Skarzak was just the excuse you needed.” Bernice said.

“Exactly, Bernice. I’m sorry.” The Doctor replied.

Before anyone else could say anything Ace’s voice came over the walkie-talkie again.

“You might want to start running towards the TARDIS.”

The Doctor snatched the walkie-talkie from his pocket.

“What’s happening? Where is the TARDIS?” he asked.

“I’ve just killed the Grendels’ big chief and stolen her eating knife.” Ace explained.

“You’ve done what??” the Doctor exclaimed in amazement.

“No time for that now, Professor!” Ace returned. “Do you have a tracer in your pocket?”

“Yes. Why?” the Doctor asked.

“I shot a tracer dart onto the TARDIS earlier. You should be able to follow your tracer to wherever the Grendel have taken it. You’ll probably have to fight your way there. They’re on the warpath at the moment!” Ace explained.

“Yes, I wonder why?” the Doctor chuckled. “Alright, I trust you have a tracer of your own? We’ll meet you at the TARDIS.”

“Roger that, Professor. Over and out!” and then Ace was gone.

The Doctor held up the walkie-talkie. “She’s always wanted to say that, bless her! They grow up so quickly!”

He became painfully aware that everyone else was glaring at him.

“ Ah, yes!” he fumbled apologetically. The Doctor pocketed the walkie-talkie and took another small box like device from his other pocket. He switched it on and it immediately started to bleep with flashing red lights. The Doctor swung his umbrella off to the right.

“That way!” he declared and set off at a run.

“Is he always like this?” Maxell asked Bernice.

“He’s usually a lot worse!” Bernice replied dryly.

They set off after the Doctor.

 

The group had ultimately elected to leave the unconscious Gronkel outside in his Grabber. Bringing him along would only slow them down and it wasn’t as if they were going to take him with them when they left.

As soon as they had entered the lair citadel they had been met with heavy Grendel resistance. Fortunately, with the blaster rifles of Maxell and the twins, Bernice’s hand blaster and Vrakel’s plasma-thrower they had a lot of fire power on their side. Those with weapons formed a circle around those without and slowly they were able to fight their way through the corridors of the citadel, following the directions barked at them by the Doctor.

Before long the Doctor had sighted his beloved TARDIS through an open door that led into some sort of storage chamber. The group began to make its way towards this promise of safety. All the while the rabidly furious Grendel kept coming at them. They were a little more cautious now as many of them had been cut down by the constant barrage of laser or plasma fire. However, a few Grendel that had been fitted out with ranged weapons were muscling their way to the front of the throng that was attacking. They brought their weapons to bear and opened fire.

One of the twins was immediately cut down. A blue streak of energy struck his head and it exploded in a shower of brains, blood and bone like a melon that had been stepped on by a rhinoceros.

“We’re sitting ducks if we stay together like this.” The Doctor shouted. “Everybody run towards the TARDIS, now!”

The group broke ranks and sprinted through the door into the storage chamber. Those with weapons fired covering blasts as they went.

The Grendel that had killed Vincent went down in a hail of laser and plasma.

“Where’s Ace?” Bernice wondered.

As if on cue a ventilation grid dropped down from the ceiling and Ace jumped down into the chamber, landing in a three-point crouch, closely followed by an attractive young woman in a lilac space suit.

“Did someone call me?” Ace grinned as she came up from her crouch, gun in hand and instantly blazing away at the Grendel.

“Keep them at bay for as long as you can while I get the TARDIS open!” the Doctor instructed as he started to fumble through his coat pockets for the key.

As the gun fight continued and laser bolts whizzed through the air, Carlton and Caitlin stood apart from each other, glaring daggers into each other’s eyes.

“Nice to see you’re safe, sis.” Carlton smiled through gritted teeth. “It would be a shame if you were suddenly cut down by a stray laser bolt while standing mere feet from salvation.”

Suddenly there was a blaster in his hand that hadn’t been there before.

A shot buzzed out.

“Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?” Ace beamed.

Carlton looked down at the smoking hole in his best suit jacket with a stunned look of disbelief on his face before he collapsed, dead, to the floor.

Caitlin smiled her thanks at Ace, but there was a slight sadness to it. Despite everything, Carlton had still been her brother.

“Okay, everybody, get in quickly!” the Doctor shouted. The TARDIS door was finally open and the Doctor ushered everyone inside.

Once everyone was in the Doctor turned and doffed his hat to the angry Grendel that still surrounded the TARDIS. A barrage of energy weapons greeted him in reply. The Doctor ducked and quickly replaced his hat upon his head before dashing into the TARDIS himself.

Moments later the air was filled with the howling grind of the TARDIS engines and the blue police box faded away.

 

The Doctor stepped away from the console and hung up his hat and umbrella on the nearby hat stand. Ace and Bernice, Maxell, Virgil, Vrakel and Caitlin all stood before him.

“I’ve set co-ordinates for the nearest Martian colony. I’ll drop all of you off there, if that’s okay?” he said.

“Fine by me, Doctor.” Maxell replied. “What say we grab ourselves a seat on the next cargo vessel and go explore the universe together, eh, Vrakel?”

“I would like that very much.” The Grendel nodded with a smile.

“Room for one more on this trip?” Caitlin asked with a grin.

“The more the merrier.” Maxell replied as he eyed Caitlin up and down appreciatively.

“Well I don’t see why you’ve chosen a Martian colony.” Bernice remarked sulkily. “It’s not like I have anything to show them. I didn’t find the Sword of Skarzak!”

“Ace?” the Doctor said simply with a sly smile.

Ace grinned and reached into her rucksack. She pulled out a beautiful looking golden sword with the face of an Ice Lord carved into the hilt.

“It’s amazing what you can find lying around in Grendel throne rooms these days!” Ace declared, enjoying the joyous look of wonder and amazement that appeared upon Bernice’s face.

“Ace, I could kiss you!” Bernice cried out in delight, snatching the sword from her friend.

“If you like.” Ace replied. “But no tongues!”

 

**The End**


End file.
